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About Bryce Haymond

Bryce grew up in Sandy, Utah, where he attended Jordan High School. He served a mission to the El Salvador San Salvador East mission, including eight months as mission financial secretary. Bryce graduated from Brigham Young University in 2007 in Industrial Design and a minor in Ballroom Dance. He loves all things Nibley and the temple, and is the founder of TempleStudy.com, and also blogs at BlackpoolCreative.com. Recently Bryce joined the Executive Board of The Interpreter Foundation, where he serves as a designer and technologist. Bryce has served in numerous Church callings including ward sunday school president, first counselor in the bishopric, and currently as temple and family history instructor. He is a Product Manager and Design Director at HandStands in Salt Lake City, and lives in Pleasant Grove, Utah, with his beautiful wife, three children, and another on the way!

I don’t know a lot about Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the best-selling book Eat, Pray, Love, but I just came across this TED talk she gave recently, and thought that her perspective on the creative process, inspiration, revelation, and artistic work was quite good, and which has a parallel understanding in Mormon culture and theology. Gilbert argues that the genius that drives creative individuals does not come entirely from within the person, but from some unknown outside influence, and which has been referenced by many different names and labels through the ages. Latter-day Saints will recognize it as the Spirit or Holy Ghost.

A couple months ago I was approached by Brandon, author of the blog Latter-day Sustainability, with a proposal to team-up on administering an informal survey about the environment to Latter-day Saints and those familiar with Latter-day Saint teachings. The goal and objective is to learn more about Latter-day Saint members’ views on the environment, including how the LDS Church informs those views. I thought it was an interesting project, and so I agreed. Peter, a member of the LDS Earth Stewardship group, also joined our team.

Over the last couple months we have been engaged in compiling, editing, and reviewing a survey to be taken by anyone who is familiar with the LDS Church or its teachings. We split up the task of producing questions, and of editing them. We also each sent out a test survey to several people to get their feedback. We believe we’ve come up with a good survey which will help us gather good data on LDS views about the environment. There was no cost to us in administering this survey.
The survey will be open until November 15th. Comments are intentionally closed to help prevent discussion before taking the survey. Please feel free to share the link of the survey with your family and friends, or anyone who is familiar with LDS teachings. After the survey closes we will analyze the results and post those we find most interesting for discussion. Results will also be available to anyone with a reasonable request. More information is available on the introduction page of the survey. To contact the administrators with questions or comments about the survey, please email ldssurvey at gmail dot com.

Come check out the mashup I’ve made of Conference at TempleStudy.com. I’ve put together a video/sound stream of conference, a liveblog of comments and discussion, and a Twitter feed of all those members around the world Twittering about Conference all together on the same page. Come by and participate!

P.S. To comment about Conference on Twitter, include #ldsconf in your tweet

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we teach a gospel of love. We teach that Heavenly Father loves all His children, and desires that they return to His presence. Indeed, we teach the doctrine of Christ:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

We teach that God’s involvement in the affairs of mankind is because of His love for each of us. The entire plan of salvation is based on this love, that Heavenly Father’s full-time desire is that we, as His children, might become like Him and have eternal joy (Moses 1:39). We also teach that we must likewise love others (John 15:12).

These are supernal principles that are imperative for our eternal growth and learning, and for us to become more like our Father in heaven. For God is love (1 Jn. 4:8, 16). However, as with most principles, these virtues can be taken to extremes outside the bounds the Lord has set, and which can lead to unwise compromises of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Our passions, even in gospel principles, must be bridled (Alma 38:12). God’s love is one of these principles. Continue reading →

So it’s kinda funny that this rumor keeps getting rehashed, despite being officially debunked by the Church. But I guess it makes a good story, right? I’m surprised he didn’t say anything about Mitt Romney. Was that deliberate? Saying that the Church was a for-profit organization kinda misses the mark too (he mentioned nothing about the Church itself being a 501c3 non-profit organization). Seems like many are trying to focus the media’s attention on the wealth of the Church these days. Why?

How do you think Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins did in his portrayal of the Church?